


Sweet

by ZeeCatfish



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shop, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-09-20
Updated: 2012-09-20
Packaged: 2017-11-14 17:03:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/517532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZeeCatfish/pseuds/ZeeCatfish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dave is a coffee shop owner who has trouble admitting to himself exactly how tragic the current status of his love-life really is. Eridan is an art-history student with too much time on his hands and a completely unironic man-crush. As it turns out, coffee is a pretty good middle-ground.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sweet

**Author's Note:**

> Despite a little misconception Dave has, Eridan IS a legal, consenting adult (22 years old). Still, there is a 10+ years age gap, so if that sort of thing wigs you out, you should probably turn back now.

It's late in the afternoon on a Thursday, and the coffee store is nearly empty save for a couple of girls in their early twenties. They've taken one of the small tables near the window, and are talking animatedly while sipping their lattes, occasionally glancing out of the window with worried faces. Outside it pours, and the air is heavy with an oncoming storm.

The rich aroma of fresh coffee washes over your face as you bend over your cup, carefully working a picture of a cat into the foam. The drink is already cold, but with the lack of customers you hardly have anything better to do, so the detail on the sepia cat in the cream grows while outside the sky darkens and begins to rumble in the distance.

The girls get up, apparently having realised the rain isn't going to let up. They huddle together in the doorway for a moment and you think you suddenly understand why the pretty brunette with the bouncy curls deflected your most charming smile so easily, why the little heart in her coffee went completely unmentioned. Then, with clasped hands they rush out of the door, breaking into a run.

You give your artwork another glance, then you dump it down the drain and move on to cleaning up the newly vacated table. When you first started latte art as a party trick while you were in art school you would take pictures of your work, save them along with your canvases and sketches, but over the years you've come to appreciate the temporary nature of the medium. Years ago you'd gone to school to learn to create something to last, leave an impression on the world, be remembered forever, and then you'd come out of it so irrationally scared that your one creation that would go down into history would be _wrong_ that you couldn't even bring yourself to touch a camera.

You rinse the cups and wonder if you should close up until your shift ends. There's another hour left until Kanaya's shift starts, but you live right above the shop and there's better ways you can think of to kill time than sit around in an empty shop. Rose won't be happy with you, but by the end of the day you're still the owner of Sweet, and it's not like you're missing out on rush hour.

Just when you're about to fetch the little closed sign, the bells above the door of the store tinkle and a tall, thoroughly drowned-looking figure droops inside. He lets the door shut behind him, and as if on cue a bright flash of lightning illuminates the entire area and you're fairly certain you would have been able to appreciate the unintentionally dramatic moment if he hadn't reacted with a startled yelp and a little jump. Instead you just bite back a laugh.

He drops his backpack on the ground with a thud and crouches down beside it, fishing out the contents. Books and papers, looking like they might not have gotten through the storm alive. While he looks over the damage, you silently observe him.

You noticed he was taller than you when he entered the store, but now that you can take a better look you notice it's a gangly, clumsy height, the kind that is all awkward angles and graceless movements. He's young, you think; sixteen, maybe seventeen, and you wonder if he's still growing. He's wearing a light taupe vest that clings to him, obviously not water-resistant, and around his neck a violet scarf made of thin, purely decorative material that you're pretty certain is going to stain. Stuff like that just isn't made for rain.

It is silent for a few minutes until it finally seems to hit him he is not alone and he quickly looks up, looking around in a way that is not unlike a startled hare. When he sees you, he freezes, staring at you with wide, dark blue eyes. As far as you know seeking shelter in a public place isn't any kind of punishable offence, but he looks like he thinks you're about to put a gun to his forehead. You can't quite help but want to bully him a little.

"You know man, while I totally appreciate you bringing the atlantic ocean with you on your way in, if I wanted to go swimming I'd take a vacation," you tell him. He blinks, but doesn't move otherwise. You think you might have broken him. He has impressive eyelashes.

"Most people order something when they enter a café," you inform him helpfully. It's not necessarily true; plenty of people only come in to take shelter from the rain for a short while and on friday evenings you host a poetry group. Most of the regular attendees aren't too stingy, but buying cake or drinks isn't mandatory. That's not even getting started on the differences between a coffee shop and a café, but there is a time and a place.

He opens his mouth to say something, but the only thing that comes out is a sound that is somewhat reminiscent of a pair of balloons rubbing together, and there is no denying that is a little disturbing. You finally realise he's shaking like a reed. You're not sure why you're surprised, his clothes are soaked and sticking to him in a way that is clearly not comfortable at all and his fingers look blue.

He snaps his jaw closed with a click and nods, and you're not really sure that's a valid answer but you make him a cup of coffee anyways before sending him off to the booth in the back, the one that is next to the fake fireplace hanging on the thin bamboo wall hiding the central heating. He looks a little grateful, a little dumbfounded and also a little snooty, but mostly he looks really cold so you don't think much of it when he quickly snatches the mug out of your hands and holes himself up in the corner and spreads out his books, diligently shredding a notebook to put between the soaked pages.

You only realise he put money on the counter a few minutes late, about thrice the amount of what the coffee cost. You weren't actually planning on charging him since he looks like he's three minutes away from pneumonia and contrary to popular belief you are not a total asshole. Or rather, you are, but it's a conscious choice and you deliberately only dabble in the verbal aspects. However, business isn't so great you are going to refuse a customer his right to pay, so you calculate his change and subtly deposit it on his table along with a pile of napkins. You're fairly certain those are better suited to book-saving duty than notebooks, and you're not sure why he didn't just ask for some in the first place.

When it's not heavy with water and clinging to his face making him look like a mixture between a drowned cat and a bum, his hair curls around his face wildly. Considering the scarf and the rings you think it's a pretty safe guess to say that he probably styles it normally. You own a coffee shop that hosts a poetry group. You know his type. A single lock at the front is bleached, a light, washed out lavender standing out starkly against dark blond. It makes him look rather silly.

Eventually he stops fussing over his books and fishes an expensive looking cell-phone out of his pocket. It's a purple edition. You're fairly certain Rose has the exact same model, except hers has her name engraved on the back in gold. You won't even claim to pretend to understand the subtle nuances of your mother and sister's odd feud. His voice is interesting, unexpectedly confident compared to what you were expecting. He also stutters.

Kanaya comes in fashionably late, just like how she does everything fashionable. Punctuality has always been more your thing. You don't mind much, because she is a diligent and reliable worker, though it takes an especially stern look to deter her from sticking her nose into curly drowned schoolkid's business. Boundaries and privacy are things that have always eluded Kanaya, who is one of a family of thirteen, and apparently meddling is a very hard habit to break.

You retreat upstairs, not really feeling like sticking around any longer than necessary, and take a shower. You love the scent of coffee, but you smell enough of it downstairs and you can live without having your living quarters smell like job. The scent still drifts in, of course, but you chase it away by burning oils, a habit you'd gotten into during a relationship with a pretty hippie with short red hair and a thorny personality.

Kanaya comes up briefly after she closes up, tells you the boy was picked up by his friend. You're not sure why she bothers informing you, since all you did was give him coffee and napkins. You don't even like the napkins, they're the rough recycled kind that never properly absorbs anything, but your clientele consists mostly of people with views on ecological problems and a blog, and you like keeping your customers happy. You tell Kanaya this. She gives you an odd look.

When you fall asleep that night you dream of startled dark blue eyes and a clear voice with an odd, almost practiced stutter. In your dream you draw a flower in his latte. When you wake up you feel guilty, and you can't for the life of you understand why.

\----

It's Monday morning and it's snowing. The usual stream of monday-morning customers drag brown snowslurry into the store with them while coming to fetch their morning boost and the paper takeaway cup supply is running dangerously low. You work on sundays so to you this isn't the back-to-work day it is to everyone else, but you still dislike mondays because these mornings customers are extra grouchy. When you still shared this shift with Nepeta you two shared a frowny-face jar, put in money with every grouchy customer you served and use it to get drinks together after work.

Then she gave birth to a kid, began working evening and afternoon shifts only, and really you were both getting too old for weekly getting smashed sessions anyway.

When it is over, the only thing that remains of the morning rush is a muddy brown trail running from the door to the register, and you resign yourself to having to clean that up at least several times today. There is an old couple sitting by the window, and an elderly man with a newspaper and a chocolate cake in the booth in the far corner, but other than that the store is empty.

After wiping away the snowslush from the floor you begin working on a latte, using cheap store-brand coffee rather than the expensive beans saved for customers. Latte art is a party trick that works well on girls and that cheers up the occasional down-on-their-luck regular, but it's not valuable enough a hobby to waste perfectly classy coffee on.

With quick, practiced movements you pour the basics for another animal. Not a cat this time though. Maybe you'll try for a chinchilla.

You have only just started to etch in the basic guidelines, internally debating with yourself the moral implications of putting rodents on your drinks, when you realise someone is standing outside the entrance.

Instead of coming in, he stands in front of the glass door looking indecisive and a little nervous, which draws your interest away from your chinchilla-to-be foamblob because while you see a large variety of vaguely intriguing figures doing not entirely normal things on a fairly regular basis, you can't even begin to imagine why someone would feel nervous about entering a coffee shop. You briefly amuse yourself with the idea of him coming to ask your coffee to prom.

Then you meet his eyes during one of his twitchy glances, and you realise that this is the same kid who came in about a month ago during that storm. You're still not sure why he's nervous. You're also not sure why you remember him so vividly. In between the thick coat he's bunched up in, the gauzy knitted snood wrapped around his neck and most of his face and the thickly framed glasses you are absolutely certain he wasn't wearing last time you're just about sure you shouldn't have recognised him at all. The bleak purple streak in his hair has been redyed into a vibrant magenta, and instead of styled like you were expecting, his hair is slicked back. His eyelashes are still just as impressive as you remembered them.

He gives you the same deer-in-the-highlights look he did last time, and you motion for him to get in. You're not sure why this guy thinks it's some kind of criminal offence to look people in the eye, but you'd rather he stares at you like you're going to eat him inside than have him stand around the entrance like some kind of moron and scare your potential customers away.

He scuffles in like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and for a moment you wonder if you should be suspicious. He might actually have a reason for this unprompted guilty conscience after all.

Then he begins fiddling with his pockets, looking for his wallet, and you dismiss the idea. Paying customers are paying customers after all, and if the police comes sniffing by looking for a dude with killer eyelashes and purple in his hair it’s no career breaker for you to tell them you sold him a cup of coffee and a muffin.

Against your expectations, he orders a simple latte. You were expecting a fancy order with extra cream, caramel and sprinkles or something equally sweet and outrageous to completely drown out any taste of coffee his order might have had. There’s an art college not too far away, so you do offer the option. It’s a fair deal of your income.

You pour him his order, working a simple rosetta into the foam and chase the memory of drawing him flowers from the forefront of your memory. He follows your movements with interest, but you’re not sure if that’s genuine, or if he’s just trying to avoid looking at your face.

Once again, he drops about three times the amount of money needed to pay for his coffee, and you wonder if he’s just really bad with money or if he really can afford to be that flippant with it. You fish out the required amount and shove the rest back to him, and he takes his latte. Instead of rushing off to find a place sit though, he stands around looking especially twitchy and spooked.

“Was there something else I can help you with, or do you just really like that part of the floor. In that case, I just want to warn you that I’m going to have to ask you to vacate if another customer comes in,” you tell him, feeling more than a little victorious when he makes another one of his odd squawky noises before hurriedly moving over to one of the empty tables near the window.

He almost trips over his own feet while getting there, but after he digs a thick tome out of his bulky purple backpack, multiple count victim to sharpie mutilations and bubble-writing, he ceases to be interesting and you return to your chinchilla, which has nearly vaporised and now looks more like a zombie hamster.

You dump it into the sink and determinedly start over, pouring the basics of the ears, tail and body and grabbing a fresh straw to etch in the new details, trying to picture a live chinchilla in your mind. In your memory it looks something like the freak mutant baby of a ferret and a rabbit, and you’re sure you’d do a lot better with a reference, but for now this will do.

It’s only when you look up and catch him peeking at you over the edge of his book that the pieces start falling into place. You give him an odd look and he ducks back behind the cover. His ears are red. This time you don’t think the cold is to blame.

The cover he is hiding behind is a familiar one. You can feel the corners of your lips curling as you recognise the curling white letters on deep green, and it takes significant effort to stop yourself from laughing. Your fanboy, or whatever he is, is reading your sister’s bible of incomprehensibility and purple prose. From the flowery lavender bookmark, the expensive woven kind, it even seems like he made it past the first half.

He doesn’t seem to take your smile badly, even gives a careful little grin back. It strikes you that he is probably the kind of person who doesn’t smile often, because his smile makes him look more like he bit his tongue than anything else.

Being aware that someone is sneaking glances at you is a little distracting, but it’d hardly be the first time. Admittedly, they’re usually girls, and more mid-, late twenties, but you figure flattered is probably a better reaction than disturbed. You’re not averse to pursuing another guy, really, not anymore, it’s just the age that is a little bothersome. You’re not quite midlife crisis enough to chase teenage tail just yet.

You shift your focus back to your chinchilla, and you quickly manage to push your awareness of your admirer’s glances to the back of your mind.

When a tired-looking woman your own age comes up to the counter, toting around a sleeping, chocolate skinned toddler and a tiny Bruce Lee, both dressed in colourful oriental winter clothes and matching red mittens and knit hats in a stark contrast to their caretaker’s plain beige coat you give her a latte with a series of little hearts in the foam and a warm smile. She looks like she needs it.

When you look back to the guy’s table you notice he’s put his book away and seems to be getting ready to leave. You wonder if it’s because he’s insulted. It’s no skin of your back, you don’t really need any jailbait making googly eyes at you. He notices you looking, and gives a shy little wave, making an odd expression you can’t quite place. You think it’s probably meant to be a smile. Maybe even a coy smile. You wonder on what planet this kid earned his basic sapient lifeform communication diploma.

Nepeta arrives a little early for the afternoon shift you’re sharing. The store fills up quickly when nearby schools let out and office workers take a coffee break, and you’re mostly too busy to spare a thought for the hipster spacecase with a crush until you close up shop.

When you once again wake up from a completely chaste dream with an odd sense of guilt creeping over you, you resolve to get your ass back into the dating scene. Rose always did warn you that not even you could elude the desires for a wife, two and a half children and a dog forever. You’re still not feeling the children or the dog, because both of those sound like more work than you want to bother with, but you can’t deny the company would be nice.

You also firmly tell yourself that you will not be etching a panda-face in purple-snood’s coffee ever.

\---

“So he’s finally progressed to inside the establishment,” Kanaya notes on Wednesday afternoon right after you’ve handed snood his latte, this time just embellished with a simple swirly pattern. He isn’t actually wearing a snood today, though he does have a glaringly bright blue scarf tied around his neck. It has lime green sequins on it, and you’d secretly been waiting for Kanaya to implode at the sheer magnitude of the fashion disaster.

You think you’ll continue calling him snood though. You rarely know the names of your regulars, so most of them just get whatever nickname you deem fitting, and you can’t think of a more appropriate portmanteau for this guy than snood.

“What do you mean?” you ask her while making one of the more extravagant orders coming from the group that just entered. You assume they’re students.

“The boy with the purple in his hair, the contrary one. I’ve come across him before, on the little bench at the corner of the street. And then later against the wall a little closer,” she tells you primly while wiping down the counter. “I figured it would take him at least another two weeks to dare and take the final jump. Looking at him, you’d think Sweet’s the snake-pit with the treasure he wants, tempting but deadly. Isn't he the one who came in a while ago, during that storm?”

“Contrary?” You feel a little cheered up by the fact that you're not the only one who recognised him right away.

“Obstinate, snobby, whichever you want to pick. When I asked him if he wanted to go in he responded with telling me that harrying random passer-bys into entering my store was fucking unconscionable, those words exactly. I’m not even entirely sure whether he was trying to be insulting or evasive.” She passes you a mug for your next drink and then fixes her shirt, returning to the register to take the next order. You wonder if that means she’s feeling insulted or intrigued.

You look into snood’s direction. Two people from the little art student herd have broken off the group to sit by him, and he seems to be trying to explain them something. He is waving his hands around, trying to make a point. His company seems unimpressed. Watching him like this makes it a lot easier to believe Kanaya’s impression of him than thinking back to his frightened-rabbit eyes and unsubtle glances. The self-important confidence seems to radiate off of him.

Then he glances in your direction, and his eyes go wide again like he’s seen a ghost. This time you don’t miss the uneven red splotching his cheeks before he ducks into himself, almost appearing to shrink into his fancy coat and ugly blue scarf. One of his friends looks at him in confusion, the other twists around in her chair to see what happened.

She’s charming, and you’re not saying that just because of your newfound resolve to reinsert yourself into the dating scene. Not your type at all, a bit young for that, but very pretty. Also a bit too heavy on the hippie image you think when you realise that she’s wearing a bright flowery sarong under her aquamarine coarse-knit coat. And home-dyed pants under that. If nothing else, she certainly is something to look at.

Less charming is the wide, sunny grin she gives you. Any other time you’d wave hippies smiling at you off as something you don’t need to bother thinking too hard about because by the end of the day you’re just the owner of a store that sells purely organic no-slave-labor coffee; you’re probably not an eligible candidate for tree-hugging indoctrination or on some kind of hit list for being an enemy for peace, love and equality or what will you. The way she’s grinning though, that shit’s nothing short of eerie.

You quirk an eyebrow at her, but she seems completely unfazed, calmly turning back to snood and reengaging him in conversation. He looks like he’s trying to will himself out of existence, and their other friend looks from them to you and back, seemingly torn between amused and disdainful. He does send you a stern glare, which you think is of the protective-of-my-girlfriend kind, and you sort of wonder if he has insecurity issues because if nothing else, you probably have at least ten years on both him and his lady-friend -who you have dubbed holi, because her blinding fashion sense calls for something colourful and exotic. Unless you’re emitting dingo-vibes now, you don’t really see why he’s considering you a threat, generally glorious visage aside.

On second thought, the fact that he’s apparently feeling territorial while the topic of their conversation is obviously snood’s crush on you, clear to anyone with functioning eyes, is amusing enough on it’s own so you decide against questioning it too much. You kind of want to dub him jellyfish even though 3D or shady would be much more fitting considering he’s running around wearing a pair of decorative dual-tone 3D shades. In the end you settle on calling him hovercraft full of eels. He might even appreciate the reference.

Holi seems to be interrogating snood in an excited and mostly one-sided whispered barrage of questions, though she doesn’t appear to give him enough time to fit more than yes or no in the answer space before she moves on to the next question, and if there was ever any doubt as to the topic of their conversation, his constant little glances give them away entirely.

You wince when Kanaya jabs you in the ribs to catch your attention, and you’re almost ashamed of yourself when you realise you were so engrossed in watching snood make a fool of himself you forgot you're supposed to be pouring people coffee with pretty figures in it. Highly unprofessional. That's the kind of thing people get scolded by the boss for. In your case, you're the boss, but you're pretty sure Kanaya is going to tattle to Rose so you'll probably end up being lectured anyway.

Sometimes you wondered why you agreed to hire your sister's best friend.

"Something on your mind, Dave?" she asks when you hand her two mugs of steaming lattes with little hearts in the foam to hand to the pair of charming ladies at the counter. They laugh and croon over the figures, but one of them is wearing a wedding band and the other doesn't look very interested in you either so you think they probably find the pictures itself more charming than the gesture.

You consider waving her off her question because this is all really stupid no matter how you look at it, but then you realise she'll just think you're being suspicious if you evade her. Getting hassled into having a _talk_ with Rose about something like this would be a prime example of making a flea into a polar bear, and there is pretty much a minus twenty percent chance of Kanaya letting go and leaving well enough alone. "No man, I'm just observing the ins and outs of the finest of teenage crushes, courtesy of snood over there."

It's a testament to friendship as well as how long you and Kanaya have known each other that she doesn’t even so much as blink at the nickname. "I'm fairly certain he's in his twenties," she tells you instead. "And you're aware of the subject of his fine teenage crush, yes?"

"No he's not. Look at the odd, awkward movements. He looks like he's about to poke out his own eyeballs with his elbow, that's a teenage phase. Besides, you can't tell me that's not a schoolbag he's toting around," you say, glancing over at snood's table again. By now he's shrank so far into his chair he looks like he's about to merge with it, maybe turn into some kind of autobot-sailor scout magical chair hipster and magic himself somewhere far far away. "And unless it's my coffee, which I do admit is ridiculously awesome but not quite sapient enough to sign a marriage contract, yeah, I'm not actually that oblivious."

"He's college age at least. Thrift-store over-accessorising says more than awkwardness, he could have just had a very late growth spurt," she says as she scribbles something on the inventory list. You must be close to running out of something again. "And college students use books and bookbags too, in case you hadn't noticed. So, what are you going to do with this?"

"Do with it?" you ask, cautiously. You don't really intend to do anything with it. It's flattering and kind of adorable, but it's also really dumb, and you'd rather keep your hands clean off of this one. Breaking some kid's heart is one thing, doing it deliberately is more trouble than you're willing to deal with.

"You're the one making marriage metaphors. Not everyone around that age is playing for the big leagues, you know." She gives you one of those quick little smiles of her that tell you that she knows exactly what she's saying, and you wonder how rude it would be to just sidestep the rest of the conversation entirely. There aren't any new customers entering or older ones leaving, so nothing explicitly needs serving or cleaning. You decide not to take the risk. A meddling Kanaya Maryam is a force to be reckoned with.

"Oh please no, Kanaya, not the sports metaphors, you've found my one true weakness," you tell her dryly.

She clacks her tongue. "Don't quote spider-man at me, you."

"I'd quote spider-woman, but I'm not familiar with the source material."

"Very funny Dave," she tells you, but you can see the skin around her eyes crinkling as she smiles. "Don't let John hear you."

"Hey, I didn't say anything incriminating. You have no proof it was me. Bro-code demands solid proof before accusation."

"Husband-code demands he listens to me, or else. I'm sure he'll agree my word counts," she tells you with a little wink. You try to ignore the implications.

"Technically he's married to Vriska," you say instead. A few years ago this would have earned you a dark look and a lecture on the political and social intricacies of polyamorous relationships. Now she just rolls up a menu and thwacks you on the head with it.

"Hey, hey, employer abuse!" you laugh, batting her hand away before behind the register to help the unamused looking older man who is waiting to order. You silently hope that that's the last you hear of the subject, but when you catch holi and snood sneaking a peek at you again mid-conversation you get the uncomfortable feeling it won't be that easy.

\---

You're not wrong.

Apparently taking the leap and daring to enter Sweet has broken his fear for the great unknown, and now you are seeing a lot more of him than you were expecting. You don't know what he does outside of his spare time, but apparently he now spends all of his time off the clock carefully nurturing a brand new coffee addiction. (He's even gathered his marbles and tried out some less conventional flavours, and now he seems to have settled on trying every single desecration of the pure bean you can throw at him at least once. You will rise to meet this challenge. You are trooper. You even promise to not shed more than a single manly tear when you mix ungodly amounts of liquid chocolate, sugar, caramel, cream, cherry liquor and whipped cream in a mug all at once even though what'll remain probably doesn't even rate as coffee anymore.)

It takes you about a week to certify that he clears out soon enough when you are not working, and about two for him to apparently memorize your working schedule. This is a little unsettling, but he is a paying customer and it's easy enough to tell yourself and others that he probably just really likes your coffee. Who can blame him? Your brewing skills come with brewing skills. The brewing skills of your brewing skills' brewing skills have won prizes for their brewing skills. (You won an award once, five years ago. That certificate is your baby, almost as much as the store itself.)

Kanaya calmly informs you you are sticking your head in the sand and playing ostrich, and that someone will poach your eggs if you don't grow the fuck up. She's worked for you for years, and you know her well enough to know she's mostly harmless unless she's wearing green lipstick, which switches on berserk mode, but something about your classy co-barista saying fuck always makes you want to shit your pants. Still, she would have a point if denial wasn't a river gone cold turkey on flowing in high school. You are not denying that he wants your weenie, you tell her. After all, who wouldn't. Also, over-inflated bird or no, you will stick to your nuts and your ostrich-experience would be eggs-free, cue pointed stare.

While working in a coffee shop isn't exactly a free-for-all let's do nothing all the time forever kind of deal, you do get plenty of time to observe him. This isn't because you go out of your way to do so, but because it is physically impossible to stop yourself from noticing him when he is there _all the time_. Snood, you decide, seems like the kind of guy who makes posts on his tumblr about how he was a hipster before hipsters were even a thing, and how unfair it is that he has to deal with all the social stigmas coming with the trope, never mind that he can't be that much older than twenty and you are pretty sure that the 'before hipster' age is a myth. If it's not, you certainly don't remember it.

You're halfway tempted to call him out and say you're a seventies kid, make a duck-face at the camera. 1977 represent. No, nobody cares that it was only the last few weeks of '77. On a scale of 3D glasses to purple-green striped snoods with whales cross-stitched into the bottom that shit rates fancy-hand ground coffee beans for pretentiousness. You make a living out of grinding and then reselling those beans to people, so you consider yourself especially qualified to judge.

You've bumped up the age estimate to early twenties because it helps you sleep at night, and because the pile of books he's brought with him so far include but are not limited to Complacency of the Learned, Lolita, Elysium and the Prince, and the idea that a teenager would pick any of those up for some light reading at that one coffee shop which pretty much has an indentation of their ass carved in the cushion of that one booth in the center with the best view of the counter -you've checked, and will repeatedly tell anyone who asks (Kanaya, Nepeta, Rose, John) that this does not bother you- makes your head hurt.

By now you have an ongoing bet with Kanaya. She says he's cover fronting for pretentiousness, probably to impress you. Apparently 'look at all this literature I have consumed without anyone even having to point a gun to my temple' is hipster for 'I call shotgun on your fly by being sophisticated'. She also says they're probably false covers, and that he is secretly reading vampire novels and wizard smut. You have a feeling he's honestly enjoying the stuff he reads though. Or at the very least, he's trying very hard to pretend he understands enough of it to actually enjoy it. You do tell Kanaya that not everyone enjoys the drivel she and Rose serve their joint book club.

The next day he brings Harry Potter.

You try to convey your betrayed disappointment through eyelaser, but all he does when he realises you are looking at him is hunch over the Chamber of Secrets and try to pretend he isn't blushing. Then he knocks over his coffee, and while you mop up the mess you try to console yourself by repeating 'at least it wasn't wizard smut' to yourself over and over.

\---

 

It is December 3rd 2012, and you are are now thirty-five years old. Your sister got you a book on mid-life crises, your coworkers gave you a set of smutty romance novels involving age differences and your best bro and ex girlfriend banded together with your mother and got you several bottles of very, very expensive alcohol while your brother ironically presented you with a senseo coffee machine. Ironic value or no, you very firmly insist that this is sacrilege of the highest degree, and that if he doesn't take that thing back home with him you will disown him. He tells you he'll get you a smuppet instead. You begrudgingly allow the anti-christ of machinery to live in your kitchen. Your family tree remains intact. Your faith in humanity does not.

You'll banish the senseo machine to storage later.

Kanaya has forcefully insisted on switching shifts so she'll be looking after the store during daytime. This is a not so subtle ploy to get you to spend the day with your relatives (and John and Jade, who might as well be relatives by now), and it is very successful, both in getting you to actually sit down around a table with your family and talk -which you do not do quite often enough, you are well aware, though you think the attached motherly guilt-trips on how you need to call her more often might be in part responsible for that. It's hard to get over teenage obstinacy, even if you are in your mid-thirties- and reminding you of how unmarried you really are.

After spending half an hour dodging having to answer to your mother's questions regarding to marriage and grandbabies you slip Rose's breakup with her latest paramour into the conversation to escape the epicenter of attention. Your sister gives you a look that would make lesser men quake in their boots, but it is your birthday so you are fairly certain you'll manage to get away with only some minor subtle jabs meant to carefully undermine your male pride.

"-and then I informed him that if he so desires to act like a buffoon out of a misguided conviction of male supremacy, he can do so without my company as I do not intend to waste my time on morons. That is all there is to it," Rose explains primly, smiling sagely while cutting into a piece of chocolate cake. Sometimes you wonder if she wouldn't have been better off a lesbian; she doesn't move mountains, they jump aside for her and salute. Your sister is a confident woman who has the world by the balls, and sometimes you think the men smart enough to keep up with her are too scared she's better than them to give her a chance. Then again, who knows; it's not like lesbians are immune to pride.

Either way, even Rose's endless string of men who don't make the cut and firmly get turned away still make for a better mission report to your mother than your attempts at dating (nine first dates in the past month, zero second ones. You forgot how hard this relationship BS really was) so while you are both told to get married soon, because the eternal bachelor deal got old with your brother and _someone_ has to continue the family, the topic of romance is dropped at last about halfway during the day without forcing you into a situation where you'll have to admit you don't actually intend to have any children at all, ever, regardless of if you get married or not. Your mother is a lovely woman, though not without her vices, but you don't think she'd ever forgive you if you told her.

The rest of the afternoon is actually pretty fucking great, and you secretly admit to yourself you should do this more often. It probably won't actually happen, and you're making no further commitments, but family is a nice sentiment and you should probably at least try to maintain the connection at least a little.

Still, by the time you've convinced Kanaya you really don't need the evening off too you are completely drained and an entire evening spent hunched over ground beans drawing smiley faces in latte foam to make cute ladies laugh sounds like heaven. You know you are a workaholic when you pick an evening of slaving away serving customers over being treated to a dinner consisting of nothing but cake by people who have more money than they know what to do with, and that is probably worrisome, especially when paired with the fact that you haven't had a relationship that lasted over a solid week in over ten years. You make a mental note to tell Kanaya to smack you if you ever consider getting a legion of cats.

Monday evenings are notoriously slow, especially this early in December before holiday season gets around to starting anywhere outside of elaborate Christmas set-ups in stores and shopping centres, so you’re not expecting a lot of customers. You were honestly also not expecting snood to be there, but he is, in his usual spot bent over -you squint to make out the title- the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

You’re tempted to say something about how he’s sitting, and how it ironically relates to his current literary choices but he looks so engrossed in his book you think he might not even notice if a crocodile in a grass skirt came up to his table and danced the samba. Alternatively, if meteors began falling out of the sky, because you don’t think he’d notice that either untill one of them puked a little super-baby into his lap. Then he could retreat to a little house on the farmland and raise aliens.

In the land of the humans, snood has finally looked up, and he seems immensely startled to see you there. Sometimes you wonder if he’s even aware of himself being as much of a creeper as he actually is.

You’ve gotten used to how he works by now: he’ll stare at you helplessly for a few moments and then forcibly compose himself by picking his book back up or digging his homework for lord knows what he studies out of his backpack and scowling at it for a while while he pretends to appear focused. He’s a pretty decent actor, but you can only see a routine so often before you start catching on that his pen isn’t actually touching the page when he’s making writing motions.

This time there is something slightly different about his startled bunny-look, and you’re almost tempted to ask him if there’s something on your face, but you’ve very firmly promised yourself that you wouldn’t instigate anything around the same time you promised yourself to go out and date people again so just like every other time you’ve been tempted to say something you keep your mouth shut. This is a bigger accomplishment then people give you credit for.

He turns to his backpack, and just like that you lose interest because it’s just the same old routine again and you don’t really feel like spending your birthday watching some college kid pretend to do his homework because he’s embarassed when you could be doing something relaxing, like try and draw something more complicated in your coffee, something like a stag.

You’re just about to get started on collecting the neccesities when a short, pointed cough behind the counter draws your attention. The little bell above the door didn’t ring, so that can only mean- Snood is standing there, looking so awkward it can only be considered amazing. He looks like he’s trying to school his expression into something more neutral, but more than anything it makes him look like a constipated puppy, especially with the way he is shifting his weight from one leg to the other and fumbling with something behind his back.

Your first thought is that he’s broken his cup and got too intimidated by Kanaya to openly admit it, he seems silly enough for it with the way he seems to operate by a set of rules his own entirely, like how he wears bowties and pink silk shirts no problem, but refuses to sit next to one of his friends when they’re wearing headphones or how he’ll paint his nails in all flat colours except for the ones on his index fingers, which are always, always purple.

He’s an odd duck with a manual, predictable in routine but not in habit. There’s something foreign in his features and you’ve caught yourself wondering if that weird way of speaking he uses is some kind of accent, or if he’s just weird like that. With someone like him there’s no way to tell if it’s one or the other, and that intrigues you. You’ve never put too much thought in your customer’s heritage before, but then you’ve never quite noticed a customer as much as you have him and that’s a little more disconcerting than catching yourself wondering if he’s a foreigner or not while on break.

By the time he finally pulls his hands from behind his back, you realise you’re staring. You suppose you can get away with calling it a suspicious stare, what with the way he’s been fumbling around like a prostitute with ED on payday, though you have little doubt most of the people who know you would call bullshit. It’s not that you don’t do suspicion; you just don’t do it silently.

He puts a package on the counter in front of you. It’s wrapped up in the most tacky purple seventies living room wallpaper wrapping you’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing -and you’ve been related to your bro for thirty-five years- and it has tiny fake roses pasted all over it. If subtlety was a trait the stork left in bed with kids at birth, snood must have farted in the bird’s face and been passed over entirely. Or who knows, maybe he’s just honest enough to realise he’s been about as subtle as an elephant on a subway station in his seduction-free sit-stare-stalk routine and decided to screw it and go for the glitter.

Most of the time when he does something you weren’t expecting him there’s a counter between the two of you and he’s doing it to someone else so you can just analyse this new oddity from afar and quietly write it off as a snood thing the next time he does it. This time you’re caught off guard entirely, and for a moment you’re not entirely sure what to do about it, so you silently look from the package to snood and back, as if it’ll answer all your questions for you.

“Happy birthday,” he mumbles out, and you’re actually bewildered enough to almost slip and ask him if that’s the same face he’d make if his mom walked in on him with his hand down his pants, paying customer or not. Coming in every shift and ordering coffee just to sit around and pretend he’s not staring is a little creepy in an endearing way, actually knowing the birthdate of a person you can’t stare in the face long enough to properly say hello to is honestly disconcerting, and you should probably turn him down before either of you does something stupid.

You pick the package up from the counter.

Damn your curiosity.

It’s deathly quiet while you open the wrapping paper (you’re not sure when you got into the habit of trying not to rip the paper while unwrapping presents; most people you know don’t bother with wrapping anymore. Unless it’s bro, he uses nine to ten layers _at least_ because he knows you’re an impatient little shit) and you have half a mind to look up and make sure he hasn’t suffocated himself by not breathing from nerves or something equaly stupid, but doing so would only confront you with the fact that you’re opening a present given to you by what might very well be a stalker, albeit one with very tight pants and a really nice butt.

You wonder for a moment if that would have more ironic value if you made it cute butt instead, and did one of those little wristflicks, or if that would just make you an even creepier cradlerobber if you actually attempted to admit to yourself that you might actually think this kid is kind of really adorable, in a ‘I want to pinch your cheeks like a loving grandmother and then handcuff you to my bed forever kind of way’. When you fish a black velvet jewelry box out of the paper you manage to distract yourself from the newly opened pandora’s box that is your brain-penis balance in regards to snood to give him a quirked eyebrow.

Your quirked eyebrows are a weapon of mass destruction. He’s glowering up a storm. You’re pretty sure that’s his way of showing he’s about to piss himself from nerves.

Flipping open the lid of the box feels, you decide after a moment of silent contemplation as you turn it over in your fingers, sort of like one of those life-changing decisions. On one hand it could be something entirely creepy in it’s symbolism, like a ring or a pair of earrings (your ears _are_ pierced, though you haven’t worn anything in them in over a year) or some kind of symbolic necklace. You’re pretty sure someone like snood would have done his homework on symbolism. He seems pretty big on deep, meaningful bullshit. On the other hand, it could be something entirely innocent, although you have trouble thinking of a type of jewelry that can be given to a near total stranger you haven’t even introduced yourself to properly without it being kind of disturbing.

You open the box.

Any inappropriate or concerned thoughts you might or might not have had running through your mind up until that point instantly vanish as your eyes fall on the intricate bronze and silver metalwork inside.

It’s a pocket-watch. A very handsome, steampunk design pocket-watch that is definitely a lot more fashionable than your old wristwatch no matter how cool the moustache picture on the cracked display is.

Almost reverently you lift the watch off of the deep red velvet pillow and flip it open. The clock interface is sleek and modern, a stark but stylish contrast to the intricate gear motifs on the outside, and made of glass that is dark but just a touch transparent, showing just a hint of the cogwheels in motion behind.

There is something hypnotizing about the thing, and while there is a small voice in the back of your head telling you you probably shouldn’t be accepting this kind of gift from someone you don’t know, there is a much clearer voice telling you to keep it, because holy shit this might be the nicest gift you’ve gotten all day.

“You know,” you say softly, letting the words hang in the tense silence for a moment before looking up. “You’ve never even told me your name.”

He looks embarassed, though not as genuinely embarassed as you expected. In fact, he looks a little smug, which might of might not be because of your reaction to his gift. You don’t wear your shades at work because it affects business negatively, and you’re pretty sure you looked fairly starstruck just a moment ago. He pulls his scarf up to hide his mouth, a nervous habit that is more than a little annoying right now because when he _does_ mutter what you can only assume to be his name it is so muffled all you can make out is “Emu-uh-uhn Emuhu-uh”. You sincerely doubt that’s it.

“I’m sure one-hundred percent alpaca in navy loved the introduction, snood,” you tell him, “but since I’m the one who asked I’d kind of appreciate a repeat performance. And out loud this time.”

He blinks at you once, twice, trice, opens his mouth and asks, “Snood?”

You shrug. “I had to call you _something_ , didn’t I? Now cough up your actual name or I’ll be calling you that forever.”

“Eridan Ampora,” he says, and okay, that’s kind of a weird name, but it suits him. He’s kind of a weird guy, after all.

“Well then Eridan Ampora,” you say while slowly turning your new pocket-watch over in your fingers, letting the pads slide over the cogwheel motive, “I’m not sure how you knew my birthday was today, but I’m going to ignore that because this thing is pretty awesome, just like I’m going to ignore that I’m getting fancy gifts from guys I don’t know. Actually, I’m just going to go ahead and chalk that up to the infallible Strider swag. In case your little semi-stalker resources hadn’t informed you, the name’s Dave Strider, yes you may swoon now.”

He doesn’t swoon. He does give you an owlish look before opening his mouth again. “You’re w-wearin’ a name-tag.”

You look down at your left breast pocket and whistle between your teeth. “Well damn, you’ve figued me out. And here I thought I was protecting my anonymity so well. I’m deeply ashamed.”

He seems caught of guard by your flippant attitude. You wonder if you’ve crushed whatever little fantasy of you he had in his head, but then he begins fidgeting with his scarf again and gives you this oddly endearing little scowl that you think was probably supposed to be a smile. You’ve never seen him smile, but on occasion he makes this odd expression like he bit a lemon-peel that seems to be his substitute. You wonder if it’s just because he doesn’t laugh enough or if his face legit has an identity crisis that it’s confusing expressions.

“Kan told me,” he blurts out, and you’re torn between wondering when he got to first-name basis with your employee and feeling a little betrayed. “That it w-was your birthday today, I mean. W-when she noticed me enterin’the store this mornin’. And I know-w it’s kind a’ w-weird a’ me, but I w-wanted to get you somethin’ anyw-way, and-” he trails off, looking awkward again, though you think this time it’s more because of something in his head than anything you did.

The world is conspiring against you. And by the world, you mean your employees. And by conspiring you mean you have a sinking feeling you've ended up on Nepeta's shipping wall, and Kanaya is the secret agent sent to enforce the miracle romance.

The worst part are the bits where you catch yourself not minding anywhere near as much as you're supposed to.

Then, you do something completely stupid and lean over the counter, cupping his cheek and you

kiss that boy

on

the

mouth.

That night you dream of dark blue eyes and pouty lips, and it’s not innocent at all. You wake up with a tent in your boxers and feeling guiltier than you can ever remember feeling, including that time when you broke one of your brother’s most expensive vinyls and he caught you trying to hide the pieces behind your mom’s liquor cabinet.

You still don’t know his age.

**Author's Note:**

> This was meant to be a one-shot, but then it became 9000 words long and still wasn't done, so I cut it in two. I promise the next part will actually have Eridan in it as being more than just that weirdo in the background making strange faces and being really really bad at seducing people.


End file.
